Speaking at the session of the Central Executive Committee of
the Soviets on August 4, L. Martov said (we quote from the
Novaya Zhizn report) that “Tsereteli’s criticism is
too mild”, that
“the government does not repel counter-revolutionary attempts by
army officers”, and that “it is not our aim to overthrow the
present government or undermine confidence in it....” “The
actual balance of forces,” Martov continued, “does not at
present warrant the demand for power to be transferred to the
Soviets. This could come only in the course of a civil war, which
at the moment is impermissible.” “It is not our intention to
overthrow the government,” Martov concluded, “but we must
call its attention to the fact that there are other forces in the
country besides the Cadets and army officers. They are the
revolutionary democratic forces, and on them the Provisional
Government must rely for support.”

These are remarkable arguments from Martov, and they deserve
very careful examination. They are remarkable in that they bring
out very clearly the most widespread, the most harmful and most
dangerous political errors of the petty-bourgeois masses and their
most typical prejudices. Of all spokesmen for these masses,
Martov, a publicist, is certainly one of the most
“Left-wing”, most revolutionary, most politically conscious
and most skilful. It is therefore more useful to analyse his
arguments than those of a Chernov flaunting an array of empty
words or of a stupid Tsereteli and their like. In analysing
Martov’s arguments, we shall analyse what is at present most
reasonable in the ideas of the petty bourgeoisie.

First of all, Martov’s vacillation over the transfer of power
to the Soviets is quite typical. Prior to July 4 Martov was
against this slogan. After July 4, he was
for it. Early in
August, he was once more against it, and note his
monstrously
illogical and amusing, from a Marxist point of view,
argumentation. He is against it because, he says, “the actual
balance of forces does not at present warrant the demand for
power to be transferred to the Soviets. This could come only in
the course of a civil war, which at the moment is
impermissible”.

What a muddle. It implies, first, that before July 4
the. transfer of power was possible
without civil war (true
enough!), but it was just then that Martov was against the
transfer. It implies, secondly, that after July 4, when Martov was
for the transfer of power to the Soviets, it was possible without
civil war—an obvious, glaring distortion of the facts, for it
was on the night of July 4–5 that the Bonapartists, supported by
the Cadets and attended on by lackeys like Chernov and Tsereteli,
brought -the counter-revolutionary troops to Petrograd. To take
power peacefully under these circumstances would have been
absolutely impossible.

Thirdly and lastly, Martov implies that a Marxist or even just
a revolutionary democrat had the right to reject a slogan
correctly expressing the interests of the people and those of the
revolution on the grounds that the slogan could be realised
“only in the course of a civil war”. But this is an obvious
absurdity, an obvious renunciation of the whole class struggle,
the whole revolution. For everyone knows that the history of all
revolutions the world over reveals an Inevitable rather than an
accidental transformation of the class struggle into civil
war. Everyone knows that it was
after July 4 that we in Russia saw
the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie starting civil war, the
disarming of regiments, executions at the front, and assassination
of Bolsheviks. Civil war is “impermissible” for
revolutionary democrats, if you please, just when the course of
events has inexorably brought about a situation in which the
counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie have started civil war.

Martov has entangled himself in the most unbelievable, amusing,
and helpless fashion..

It was before July 4 that to transfer full power to the then
existing Soviets was the only correct slogan, At that time, it
could have been done peacefully, without civil war, because there
had been no systematic acts of violence against
the masses,
against the people, such as began after July 4. At that time, the
transfer of power guaranteed the peaceful progress of the whole
revolution and, in particular, made it possible to peacefully
eliminate the struggle between classes and parties
within the
Soviets.

After July 4, the transfer of power to the Soviets became
impossible without civil war, since, on July 4 and 5, power had
passed to a military Bonapartist clique backed by the Cadets and
the Black Hundreds. Hence, all Marxists, all those on the side of
the revolutionary proletariat, all honest revolutionary democrats,
must now explain to the workers and peasants the radical change in
the situation which necessitates a new path for the transfer of
power to the proletarians and semi-proletarians.

Martov has advanced no arguments in defence of his “idea”
that civil war is impermissible “at the moment”, in defence
of his statement that it is not his intention “to overthrow the
present government”. Because his opinion is unsubstantiated,
and particularly because he voiced it at a meeting of defencists,
it inevitably smacks of the defencist argument that civil war is
impermissible while the enemy threatens from without.

We wonder whether Martov could have brought himself to advance
such an argument openly. Among the mass of the petty bourgeoisie,
this argument is very popular. And, of course, it is one of the
most commonplace. The bourgeoisie were unafraid of revolution and
civil war at times when the enemy threatened from
without—either in September 1870 in France or in February 1917
in Russia. The bourgeoisie were unafraid of seizing power at the
price of civil war at times when the enemy threatened from
without. The revolutionary proletariat will reckon just as little
with this “argument” from liars and lackeys of the
bourgeoisie.

* * *

One of the most glaring theoretical mistakes which Martov makes
and which is also very typical of the whole range of political
ideas of the petty bourgeoisie, is to confound tsarist
counter-revolution, and monarchist counter-revolution in
general, with bourgeois counter-revolution. It is due to the
particular narrow-mindedness, or particular stupidity, of the
petty-bourgeois democrat who cannot break free from economic,
political and ideological dependence on the bourgeoisie, who
cedes them priority, sees them as an “ideal”, and believes
their cries about the danger of “counter-revolution from the
right”.

Martov expressed this range of ideas, or rather this
petty-bourgeois stupidity, by saying in his speech: “To
counterbalance the pressure exerted upon it [the government I from
the right, we must create a counter-pressure.”

Here is a sample of the philistine credulity-and disregard of
the class struggle. It implies that the government is something
above classes and above parties, the only trouble being that it is
under too strong pressure from the right, so that there is need
of stronger pressure from the left. What wisdom worthy of Louis
Blanc, Chernov, Tsereteli, and all that despicable crew! How
infinitely useful this philistine wisdom is for the Bonapartists!
How they long to make “the foolish yokels” believe that the
present government is fighting both the Right and the Left, the
extremes only, as it builds up true statehood and exercises true
democracy! Yet, in practice, it is this Bonapartist government
that constitutes a government of the counter-revolutionary
bourgeoisie.

It is to the advantage of the bourgeoisie (and necessary for
the perpetuation of their domination) to deceive the people by
making believe that they represent “the revolution in general,
while counter-revolution threatens from the right, from the
tsar.” It is only through the infinite stupidity of the Dans
and Tseretelis, through the infinite conceit of the Chernovs and
Avksentyevs, that this idea, nurtured by the conditions of Life of
the petty bourgeoisie, still survives among “revolutionary
democrats” in general.

Anyone who has learned anything from history or from Marxism
will have to admit that a political analysis must focus on the
class issue: what class represents the revolution and
what class
the counter-revolution?

French history shows us that the Bonapartist counterrevolution
developed at the end of the eighteenth century (and then, for a
second time, from 1848 to 1852) on the basis of the
counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie, and in turn paved
the way for
the restoration of a legitimate monarchy. Bonapartism is a
form of government which grows out of the counter-revolutionary
nature of the bourgeoisie, in the conditions of democratic changes
and a democratic revolution.

You have to purposely shut your eyes not to see how, before
your very eyes, Bonapartism is growing in Russia under very
similar conditions. The tsarist counter-revolution is at present
negligible; it has no political importance and plays no political
role. The bogey of a tsarist counterrevolution is being purposely
played up and made a fuss over by charlatans to frighten fools, to
treat philistines to a political sensation, to distract the
people’s attention from the real and serious
counter-revolution. You just cannot help laughing at the arguments
of a Zarudny, who endeavours to assess the counter-revolutionary
role of a little backyard union called “Holy Russia” but who
does “not see” the counter-revolutionary role of the union
of the entire bourgeoisie of Russia called the Cadet Party.

The Cadet Party is the major political force of the bourgeois
counter-revolution in Russia. This force has splendidly rallied
around it all Black Hundred elements, both at the elections and
(more important still) in the apparatus of military and civil
administration and in the press campaign of Lies, slander and
baiting directed primarily at the Bolsheviks, i.e., the party of
the revolutionary proletariat, and then against the Soviets.

Gradually but relentlessly, the present government is pursuing
the very policy which the Cadet Party has been systematically
advocating and preparing for ever since March 1917. It has resumed
and is prolonging the imperialist war; it has stopped chattering
about peace; it first gave ministers the right to close down
newspapers, then to disperse conferences, then to arrest and exile
people; it has restored capital punishment and executions at the
front; it is disarming the workers and the revolutionary
regiments; it has flooded the capital with counter-revolutionary
troops; it has begun to arrest and persecute the peasants for
unauthorised “seizures”; it is shutting down factories and
organising lock-outs. This is a far from complete list of measures
which present an excellent picture of the bourgeois
counterrevolution of Bonapartism.

And what about the postponed convocation of the Constituent
Assembly and the crowning of a Bonapartist policy with a Zemsky
Sobor in Moscow—a step leading to the postponement of the
Constituent Assembly until after the war? Isn’t this a gem of
Bonapartist politics? Yet Martov does not see where the general
headquarters of the bourgeois counterrevolution is. Really some do
not see the wood for the trees.

* * *

What really dirty lackey’s role the Central Executive Committee
of the Soviets, i.e., the S.R.s and Mensheviks who dominate it,
played in the matter of postponing the Constituent Assembly! The
Cadets set the tone by launching the idea of postponement,
starting a press campaign and using the
Cossack congress as a
pretext to demand postponement. (A Cossack congress! How could the
Liebers, Avksentyevs, Chernovs and Tseretelis help behaving like
lackeys!) The Mensheviks and S.R.s hopped along after the Cadets,
they crawled at their master’s call like dogs threatened with
their master’s whip.

Instead of giving the people a plain statement of the facts
showing how brazenly, how shamelessly the Cadets had been delaying
and blocking the convocation of the Constituent Assembly since
March, and instead of exposing the false evasions and the
assertion that it was impossible to convoke the Constituent
Assembly at the appointed time, the Bureau of the Central
Executive Committee promptly brushed aside all “doubts”
expressed even by Dan (even by Dan!) and sent Bramson and Bronzov,
two lackeys of that bureau of lackeys, to the Provisional
Government with a report “on the need to postpone elections to
the Constituent Assembly until October 28-29”. A splendid
prelude to the coronation of the Bonapartists by a Zemsky Sobor in
Moscow. Whoever has not stooped to complete infamy must rally to
the party of the revolutionary proletariat. Without the victory of
the revolutionary proletariat there
can be no peace for the
people, land for the peasants nor bread for the workers and all
working people.